Equilibrium V.2010

Broken glass and twisted metal crunched underfoot. It was loud. It disturbed the eerie silence. But that was the point. She wanted to make as much sound as she could. She was of the second highest rank of the High Equilibria, hence the moniker of Deux. She was one of the elite, and was highly capable of never being heard, but she did not want to be silent tonight. She did not want to be among the ghosts gliding through this barren landscape that was once her home. She knew personally that there were plenty of dead to do that and she did not want to be one of the remnants, invisible and powerless.

She ducked under the twisted skeletal remains of a skyscraper, her keen eyes scanning the environment restlessly as she moved gracefully through the shadows, but loudly, always loudly tonight. She purposely kicked the charred, dented pole in front of her, and wasn’t even mildly surprised when it groaned and toppled over, showering her in a cascade of debris. When it settled and lay still in the dust, like the disembodied limb of some monstrous robot, she smiled, clapped her hands and then continued on her way through the forest of tall metal beams.

She came to a stop of what once was the very centre of the building, but now was just a small clearing framed by a fence of what looked like spokes and glittered with granules of glass. How desolate, she thought. She kicked at the ground, and noticed that the number four from a keyboard skittered away into the darkness.

Then silence.

A strange feeling suddenly unfurled in the pit of her stomach, translating into a shiver that sent goose bumps rippling across her skin. She quickly dropped into a crouch, careful not to lacerate herself on the various sharp edges that surrounded her. Her eyes narrowed as they passed over the deathly stillness of her hazardous surroundings. Her breath quickened and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest, threatening to break out of her ribcage. It was a frantic beat, which resembled the symptoms of extreme panic, but it was simply the heightened mental and physical state that they were trained to enter before combat. As all this passed within a split second, a smirk twisted her lips.

She heard a light crunching noise, clearly a clumsy misplaced foot. Although it was no confession to what level of lowlife she was dealing with. She peered across the twisted cage of spokes she was crouched stealthily behind, and spotted the offender. She zoomed in on his face, and he seemed to be looking right at her, despite the fact that he was still over two hundred meters away. Ordinary features, she noted, not memorable, not interesting. Though he was well built, powerfully built; it was obvious through the way he carried himself as he slowly made his way in her direction. His clothing seemed to mask what she was sure to be very large and defined musculature. Though the fabric was so worn she could barely infer what it was originally, she caught a flash of murky green and brown as his torn vest flapped slightly in the gust of wind that blew across them. A marine then, she told herself, not to be underestimated. So she scrutinized the vest, looking for any indication of his rank, but found nothing. She was about to find out anyway, but –

“Fuck!” she spat, spinning and diving beneath the steel-toed combat boot that was aiming to where her head just was a moment ago. She rolled, carrying the momentum and leaping to her feet. She glared at her assailant, who looked very much like the marine now a hundred feet away. There wasn’t much time for any further observations, because he moved in.

She moved around lightly on her feet, unfazed by his feinted attacks. It quickly became obvious that she was much faster than he was, which amounted to the only advantage she was sure she had. She heard the crunching behind her, knowing that the other man was running at full-speed now. She ducked under a vicious left hook, deciding she had to dispatch this one in the next two seconds – she was not sure she could take them both at once, and was not prepared to take unnecessary risks. She leaned back, narrowly evading the knuckles which would have shattered her face. She skipped backwards lithely, realizing she was going to have to deal with both of them at once. She ducked under a sweeping hook from behind and danced out of the way, positioning herself face to face with the two Condemned.

She did not like these odds much. It was partially her own fault, she always tended to over-analyze. She had let them creep up on her, catch her off guard. It was not going to be fair, she thought, cursing her luck. They were big, and they were likely to be very skilled in combat; which, compared to the majority of Condemned, made them nothing short of lethal and probably the most challenging opponents she faced in a long time.

They quickly tried to flank her, but failed when she stepped forward to meet them, and quickly slipped in between the two. She almost breathed as a sigh of relief when she saw one stumble over the uneven ground. Another advantage; and she desperately needed them. She was positive she could stand a fair chance against each of them separately – which meant that she had to find a way to deal with them one on one.

She leapt onto the large slab of concrete a few feet behind her, knowing that the higher vantage point would prove to be useful against the odds. She watched, cold and calculating as the two Condemned made their way towards her. She saw the little slips, the slight stagger, the unsure step. They came at her from both sides. She blocked the first blow with her forearms, gasping from the impact, but disregarding it altogether; she could take it, and that was all she needed to do. She hissed under her breath as she slipped, nearly caving under the pressure as he pushed her down the slope. Deciding to change tactics, she gripped his wrists just as his comrade attacked. She blocked the kick with a twist kick, and continuing with the motion, leapt into the air to deliver a magnificent switch kick. She felt and heard the satisfying crack of bone and he tumbled backwards off the slab. She followed quickly, sliding down the slope in a crouch, quick and controlled, narrowly evading the berserker-like attacks of the first marine.

She skidded to a stop, her heels pushing aside the layers of debris and leaving gouges in the dirt below. Before the fallen marine could regain his balance and senses, she delivered another devastating kick at his head. She had the advantage here – he had half-risen, and it was perfect, for at this height, she could easily gather enough force to make sure he would never rise again; such was the force she was able to gather for the blow. There was a sickening crunch as the bones in his jaw splintered and he crumpled.

She whirled, sweeping the blow aside with an arm and using her momentum from the spin, continued with the motion and leapt into the air. Her foot carved an arc as it came down in the final part of the tornado kick. She swore inside, when she realized that she was a second too soon. It caught him in the shoulder and did nothing in the way of damage. It was harmless. She stumbled as he charged forward, waving aside her follow-up punch combo as easily as one would swat a fly. She raised her hands half-heartedly, and barely managed to absorb most of the punch that sent her sliding across the ground. She winced as she heard the thud made by her head connecting with remains of a drywall. She pushed herself up, trying desperately to ignore the painful throbbing in her temples. She blinked and felt something warm trickle down the side of her face. She reached up, wiping it away with the back of her hand, thinking it was sweat. What a nuisance, she thought, moving forward to re-engage in combat.

She watched him move towards her and try as she might, she could not spot any openings. He was too well-guarded. Be more aggressive. Be vicious. I’m trying! She snapped at the memory of her mentor. She moved forward, shifting from side to side to avoid the flurry of punches, and to position herself for a better angle from which to attack. There, she thought, as he faltered, partly out of irritation as he realized none of his punches connected, and partly because she had sidestepped him so swiftly he barely had time to blink before her foot shattered his nose and whipped back to connect with the back of his head. He fell, first to his knees, then on his face. She watched, feeling slightly detached, as the blood from his broken nose began to seep across the ground.

She moved forwards slowly, the throbbing in her head grew more painful with each step she took. She was just about to closely examine the body in front of her when she noticed the bright blue sparks emitted from the crumpled form of the first marine. She moved cautiously towards it, half-expecting it to leap to life again. She nudged the body with a foot, it lay immobile. Slightly more confident now, she rolled it over and gave a start, her heart nearly exploding out of her chest when a hand gripped her foot. Panicking, she kicked wildly with her other foot and stood horrified as his jaw was ripped from his face, exposing not blood and muscle, as she would have expected, but the dull shine of metal. The eyes, so real she never suspected, fixed their dead gaze upon hers. There was a soft whirring and a firestorm of sparks spitting from the broken cables and wires. “Re…vo…lution,” it groaned, in a decidedly robotic fashion, before the entire circuit shorted out and it died once again.

She trembled, not even bothering to shake free from the vice like grip it still kept on her ankle. It was a robot. A robot. It was not her voice, it couldn’t have been. She stared at the thing at her feet. She could have sworn she detected Priori’s voice patterns in the final word of the dying machine – how familiar the word was, she could hear it in her head, falling from Priori’s lips before the laughter… What were the chances? Was this a message from the Real World? She shook her head, decided. She drove her fist into the center of its head, the core operating system and generator crushed beneath her knuckles. It would never revive itself again. She skipped back over to the other one. Very human, she noted, as she rolled it over. This was her intended target. She breathed deeply, rising to her feet and began to run like the questions speeding through her head. Where did the other one come from? It wasn’t supposed to be in the area she was assigned, and everything showed up on the radar, which could only mean that someone had failed and she, as always, had to pick up the slack.

As she moved at dangerous speeds through the treacherous terrain, she battled the howling winds as well as the burning turmoil inside. She knew that she was Lady Fate’s favourite, but it did not mean that she would be open to this kind of speculation. Revolution was a terrifying word, filled with damning implications. No one wanted to hear it, and they would kill and crucify those who wielded it. She had no intention of being a martyr for something she did not even know was true or big enough to worry about...

[incomplete]

feedback?

Last edited by Dark S3cret on Sun Mar 07, 2010 11:50 am; edited 1 time in total

I love how you put detail into the fights; the involuntary reaction of 'ow' *wince* when robo!marine gets his head kicked is great, and the fact that you can get that out of your readers is a testament to your writing skills. (Rather than, say, ye generic shitty fanfic where 'fight' scenes are described as 'he kicked him. 'OW!' he cried. 'BITCH' he said.' and they suck :/)

It was totally blood she wiped away, wasn't it?

And the last paragraph I thought was particularly wintastic; the feeling of urgency, or at least of rushing along you convey well.

When I read this, I could almost see it happening, like a movie. It was absotively posilutely brilliant, and I jumped when that boot came out of no where to smack her in the head and fail. I'm not usually a fan of fight scenes, but this was gooooooooood. What exactly is the significance of the number four key? Is it just kind of there randomly?

YAY really? 'Cause I initially was going to make it a screenplay, but when I turned it into prose, I was still writing what I saw in my head. Haha, me neither. But I like fighting so... I try to make them good/different/more captivating.

Four in asian cultures, is pronouced the same way as "death", thus making it an unlucky number. :] I know the key seemed a little random, but I figured not super-random in that you'd be wondering why it was there... because it's like, high-tech debris.

I agree it was realistic and believable; but I'll be the nerd who has to go, "and there were pretty linguistic parts, too!" I liked all the alliteration in paragraph 11, I thought it was effective. And the adverb overflow in paragraph 2. You definitely have your own distinct style.

Are both 'now's really necessary in paragraph 3, line 1?

But the BEST for me was when I glanced through it once more, wondering why I felt strange at the idea of a robot, and saw 'the disembodied limb of some monstrous robot, she smiled...' in paragraph 2. AWESOME.

=] I'm glad you're so active! I need to get on the forum more. >.> I've been caught up in youtubing, something I have never done before. Although in my defense, I watch a series and not simply random time-wasting clips.